Neighborhoods can have depressing effect on health, according to Iowa State study

10-01-10

Daniel Russell, a professor of human development and family
studies; and Carolyn Cutrona, professor and chair of
psychology, husband and wife, have been collecting data from
the Family and Community Health Study -- an ongoing study of
800 African American families that started in 1997. Half of the
study's sample lives in Iowa and the researchers have been
tracking those families on a large map. Photo by Bob
Elbert, ISU News Service (download
print quality photo)

Neighborhoods can have depressing effect on health, according to Iowa State study

AMES, Iowa -- The nation's poverty rate climbed to 14.3
percent -- the highest level since 1994 -- according to the
Census Bureau's annual report on the economic well-being of
U.S. households. That means one in seven Americans now live in
poverty, and that may have an especially depressing effect on
people living in bad neighborhoods, according to two Iowa State
University researchers.

Daniel Russell, an Iowa State professor of human development
and family studies; and Carolyn Cutrona, professor and chair of
psychology, presented "Stressful Effects of Where You
Live: Studying the Influence of Neighborhood Context Over
Time," in August at the World Conference on Stress and
Anxiety Research in Galway, Ireland. Their presentation
summarized data taken from the Family and Community Health
Study (FACHS), an ongoing ISU study of 800 African American
families -- approximately half living in Iowa and half in
Georgia -- that started in 1997.

Russell and Cutrona reported that negative neighborhood
infrastructure can keep neighbors from forming social ties. And
it's the absence of those social ties that have a small but
significant impact on an individual's mental health.

"If you're living in neighborhoods where there's a
lot of crime, gang activities and so forth, you see weaker
social ties," said Russell, a noted loneliness researcher.
"One of the things we tried to assess was essentially
community support -- to what extent people in that neighborhood
turned to others for child care, other forms of assistance --
and whether they socialize and know each other. And it's
clear that in these negative neighborhoods there's this
inverse relationship in terms of their various problems and
lack of strong ties."

The compounding effect of bad neighborhoods

In neighborhoods where social disorder -- or a lack of social
ties -- was perceived to be high, the effects on the
subjects' perceived personal risk were amplified. The
effects of personal risk were muted in neighborhoods with low
social disorder.

"The effects of things going wrong in your own life are
magnified when you live in one of these negative
neighborhoods," said Cutrona, who presented related
research this month to staff members for Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin.
"So it affects all of us to have a sick family member, or
lose our job, or to be robbed. But when that happens to someone
in these neighborhoods, it increases the probability that the
person will be diagnosed with a major depressive disorder over
the next two years. Yet if the same event happened and you were
in a more benign neighborhood, your chances of becoming
clinically depressed were less."

Sixty-two percent of the study's participants subsequently
moved to different neighborhoods between 1997 and 2005, with
the rate of moving from specific neighborhoods ranging from 22
to 90 percent. "Neighborhood cohesion" was identified
by subjects as the most desirable characteristic of their new
neighborhoods. And people who lived in cohesive neighborhoods
were much less likely to move away.

But the ISU researchers found that the lack of racism was the
only factor that significantly improved depression among the
African American subjects after they moved.

"If the new neighborhood was less racist overall -- not
just their perception, but the perception of multiple people
who lived in that neighborhood -- then the subjects' moods
improved following that move," Cutrona said. "So it
was not about moving to a wealthier neighborhood, or even a
safer neighborhood, but moving to a less racist neighborhood
that impacted depression levels."

Not only representing low income families

The researchers emphasize that the study's sample does not
solely reflect perceptions of low income families. Only about
20 percent of the families surveyed were below the poverty line
and the sample included a wide range of family incomes,
including some families that earned more than $200,000 per
year.

"When we started the study, the average income of this
study matched the average income of Iowans," Russell said.

But both Cutrona and Russell agree that it is the low-income
subjects living in negative neighborhoods who are most
vulnerable to prolonged depression.

"If you have to live in one of these neighborhoods, you
may not have the resources for health insurance and good mental
health care," Cutrona said. "And you may not have the
support around you to say, 'This is depression and it's
treatable.'"

Russell reports he and Cutrona have received funding from the
National Institute of Mental Health to collaborate with
researchers at the University of Iowa and the University of
Georgia to study the role of genetic factors and neighborhood
environments on depression in the FACHS sample.

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Quick look

Daniel Russell, an ISU professor of human development and
family studies; and Carolyn Cutrona, professor and chair of
psychology, presented research on the depressing effects of bad
neighborhoods at the recent World Conference on Stress and
Anxiety Research in Ireland. Their presentation summarized data
taken from the Family and Community Health Study, an ongoing
ISU study of 800 African American families that started in
1997.

Quote

"The effects of things going wrong in your own life are
magnified when you live in one of these negative neighborhoods.
So it affects all of us to have a sick family member, or lose
our job, or to be robbed. But when that happens to someone in
these neighborhoods, it increases the probability that the
person will be diagnosed with a major depressive disorder over
the next two years."